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Daynotes
Journal
Week of 4 January 2010
Latest
Update: Sunday, 10 January 2010 10:28 -0500 |
09:36
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It's been a bit chilly here, and that's supposed to continue through
the week. Last night, the low temperature was 14 °F (-10 °C) with winds
of 15 to 25 MPH, which took the wind chill into the sub-zero Fahrenheit
range. I've always been suspicious of the concept of wind chill, which
could be quantified scientifically, but instead is given as an
arbitrary estimate. The Weather Channel acknowledges that by giving
wind chill temperatures as "Feels Like" numbers.
As far as I
know, no one has done the obvious experiment: set up a container of
fluid at skin temperature, expose it to various temperatures and wind
speeds, and measure how quickly the container loses heat. My guess is
that even a slight breeze achieves nearly the maximum wind chill effect
by breaking up and blowing away the boundary layer of warmer air next
to your skin. Once the wind speed is sufficiently high to do that,
additional wind speed should have little effect on the rate of heat
loss, because the warm surface is already being exposed to continuously
refreshed air at the ambient temperature. My own empirical experience
confirms that. There's a considerable difference in apparent
temperature between 14 °F in calm conditions versus 14 °F with even a 5
MPH breeze. There's not much difference between 14 °F with a 5 MPH
breeze and 14 °F with a 10 MPH or even 20 MPH wind.
The
traffic on Jerry Pournelle's back-channel mailing list yesterday was
mostly about a scammer trying to convince one of the guys on the list
to send $1,000 supposedly to another of the guys on the list, who was
supposedly stranded in London. The guy who supposedly needed the money,
Ron Morse, has a facebook page as Ronal B. Morse. The scammer
apparently set up a fake facebook page under the name of Ronal Morse
and then contacted the real Ron Morse's facebook friends, soliciting
them for money, and hoping that they wouldn't notice the difference
between the real Ronal B. Morse and the fake Ronal Morse. Of course,
any of us would have sent the real Ron the $1,000 he needed to get
home, but fortunately the scam was pretty obvious so no money changed
hands.
The scammer depended on something many people don't know.
I certainly didn't. He asked his would-be victim to send the
$1,000 to him at Heathrow airport via Western Union, claiming that it
was safe because he'd have to present identification at the Heathrow
Western Union kiosk. The would-be victim even called the Metropolitan
Police at Heathrow, hoping they'd be able to arrest the guy when he
tried to claim the money. The problem is, with Western Union one
doesn't send money to a person at a specific location; one sends money
to a person, period. Once the scammer had the transaction number, he
could claim that money at any Western Union location world-wide simply
by giving them the transaction number and presenting some form of ID,
which of course would have been faked.
08:46
-
Google introduces its smart phone today. I'm not sure why anyone
cares, nor have I ever understood why anyone would pay thousands of
dollars to have an iPhone. Several of my friends have iPhones, so I'm
sure there must be good reasons to have one, but what those reasons
might be escapes me. Perhaps I'm just a Luddite.
I'll probably
be doing more traveling this year, so I plan to buy a cell phone. It'll
be a basic Boost Mobile prepaid unit, like the one I got for Barbara
two years ago. She's been completely satisfied with it. In two
years, that phone has cost a grand total of about $100, including the
price of the phone and adding airtime every 90 days. Actually, the
total has been only about $70, because there was still $30 worth
of airtime on her phone when I added time on Christmas day. So, at $70
for 24 months, it's cost her about $3/month. Of course, Barbara
averages only about 16 minutes a month of airtime, but at ten cents per
minute even if she used it more heavily the cost would remain very
reasonable.
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
00:00
-
08:40
- The deal announced yesterday between Netflix and Warner Brothers studio
is being spun as Netflix caving, but in fact it's a win-win-win deal
for Netflix, its customers, and Warner Brothers. By delaying release of
new Warner Brothers titles for 28 days in order to let Warner Brothers
sell more DVDs, Netflix gets a better price on Warner DVDs and a big
expansion in the number of titles available for streaming. Netflix
customers get better availability of Warner titles (after the first 28
days) and more streaming titles available. And Warner gets a 28-day
window for more profitable sales of new titles to customers before
rentals become widely available. Historically, about 75% of sales of a
new DVD title occur within 28 days of release, so this should help
increase Warner's DVD sales and profitability.
The only losers
are those Netflix customers who want the latest titles as soon as
possible, and even they may see a net improvement even with the 28-day
window in effect. Netflix has the same problem with hot new movies that
libraries do with the latest best-sellers. If they buy enough copies to
meet the initial surge in demand, within a month they find themselves
with many more copies than they need to meet ongoing demand.
Libraries
have a mechanism to deal with this problem. If they think they'll
actually need fifty copies of a new book that costs $20 to meet initial
demand but only five copies of that book once the initial surge passes,
they'll buy those five copies for $100 and do a short-term rental of
the other 45 copies for perhaps $6 per copy. That way, the library has
plenty of copies to meet the initial demand, isn't stuck with 45
unneeded copies after the initial surge in demand passes, and spends
only $370 instead of $1,000.
Unfortunately, Netflix doesn't have
that option. If they buy enough copies of a hot new title to satisfy
initial demand in a timely manner, they're stuck with all those extra
copies. So, if Netflix thinks they'll need 20,000 copies of a hot new
release to meet initial but only 1,000 copies once that initial surge
passes, they might actually order only 5,000 copies. They and their
customers both lose. The customers because they're going to have to
wait to get the title because Netflix doesn't have enough copies.
Netflix because they end up with 4,000 extra copies. They can try to
sell those to their customers as used copies, probably for less than
they paid for them, but sales of that title 30 or 60 days after release
are probably going to be slow. By that time, most people who want to
watch that title have either bought it new or rented it, and traffic
for that title will be almost exclusively rentals. So Netfix may end up
with 3,000 or 3,500 essentially useless copies in stock.
Under
the new system, Netflix may buy only the 1,000 copies they need for
ongoing rentals, or perhaps 1,500 copies to cover any remaining
vestiages of the initial surge in demand. They'll pay less per copy
than formerly, and they can probably sell any copies they deem excess
at a breakeven price. Even with the 28-day wait, Netflix customers may
actually be able to get a copy sooner than they did under the old
system.
I understand that Netflix will probably be announcing similar deals with the other studios soon. I think that's a good thing.
15:35
-
A full day in the lab, as well as planning, scripting and shooting
videos. I'll be posting those on YouTube once they're ready. It's been
one of those days. As I was working in the lab, the head of the sink
sprayer came loose, drenching me and the counters around it.
Fortunately, no damage was done and I was able to reinstall the head.
00:00
-
10:28
-
Dinner with Mary and Paul last night at our favorite Mexican place. As
usual, the conversation was wide-ranging and entertaining.
At my
request, Mary brought me a baggie of poppy seeds. I'm going to use them
in a drug-testing video, because poppy seeds react just like opium. In
fact, ordinary supermarket poppy seeds are opium, in an extremely dilute form. Edible poppy seeds are from papaver somniferum,
the opium poppy plant, and contain very small amounts of the two
primary opium alkaloids, morphine and codeine, as well as smaller
amounts of papaverine and the other opiates. Trace though they may be,
those amounts are sufficient to ring bells in any test for opiates,
including urine tests. In fact, just eating a poppy seed bagel or two
is sufficient to produce a positive urine test for opiates. When Mary
handed me the baggie at the restaurant, she said she felt like she was
doing a drug deal. I'd left my wallet in my purse out in the truck.
Otherwise, I'd have handed her a $20 bill just to make her experience
complete.
Barbara and Mary both seem unhappy with
their current gym. There's a new YM/YWCA gym opening soon in our area,
which will have swimming pools and other facilities that their current
gym doesn't. I think both of them are going to drop their memberships
at Gold's Gym when they expire and move over to the new place. As well
as being a member at Gold's, Mary is also an intructor there
for organized classes, including Body Pump. She gets her
membership for free and they pay her a nominal amount for each class
she teaches.
But that also makes her a staff member, and staff
members aren't allowed to park in the Gold's Gym lot. Incredibly, Mary
and the other female instructors have to walk, in the dark and without
escort, to another parking lot. And not just the nearest lot, which
Mary calls the "Rape Me" parking lot. No, they have to walk across that
parking lot, in the dark, and on to the next parking lot, which Mary
calls the "Please Rape Me" parking lot. When Mary can't find an escort
at the gym, she calls Paul. If Paul is unavailable for whatever reason,
I told Mary to please call me. Barbara made the same offer. The gym is
maybe a mile from our house as the crow drives, so it's no trouble at
all.
I can't believe that Gold's Gym has so little
concern for its staff members that it orders them to park so far away
from the gym, knowing the risks. As far as I know, nothing bad has ever
happened, but a situation like that is just bad news waiting to happen.
And Gold's Gym would likely find itself facing a huge lawsuit if
anything bad did happen. Even if they don't care about their staff, I'd
think they care about legal liability.
Copyright
© 1998,
1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010
by
Robert
Bruce
Thompson. All
Rights Reserved.